In recent decades, various theories have challenged what appears to be a hegemonic dominance of liberalism in at least three directions: economic, legal and the political dimension of the community. Among these, two stand out for the extent of their criticism. One of them is republicanism: From the sixties onwards it went through a significant revival due to the work of figures like Quentin Skinner, JGA Pocock, and Philipp Pettit. Republican criticism of liberalism seemed to come into being based on the very strength of liberalism, a theory of liberty. From here it went on to recover an understanding of the citizen, the law, and power which questions basic principles of liberal theory as the “right”, “the State” and the possibility of ‘vero vivere libero e civile’ in a kind of depoliticized society.

Meanwhile, in parallel to the above, from agonal democratic theory (Tully, Mouffe, Honig, etc.) a critique of liberalism regarding in how far it immunized society from politics was developed. The understanding of the state-liberal as an intrinsic denial of the possibility of conflict inherent in the political struggle. Thus, the “consensus” produced under the abstraction of the rule of law replaces the essential agonal character of democracy. If so, this raises the question as to how far expressions like “liberal democracy” and ” representative-democracy” are not oxymorons constitutionally speaking.

In this volume, from a historical perspective and one of the philosophies of law and political theory, the following topics will be addressed: